


An Agreeable Compromise

by simplyprologue



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Bathroom Sex, F/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Workplace Sex, government shutdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:26:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1228096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyprologue/pseuds/simplyprologue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's day ten of the government shutdown, day four of camping out in the newsroom for the coverage, and Will and Mac are a little desperate for some alone time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Agreeable Compromise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fredesrojo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredesrojo/gifts).



> **A/N:** As with all things, blame Meg. 
> 
> Obviously post-S2. Will probably get Jossed in due time, but let's enjoy it while it lasts.

The government shutdown has kept them all in the newsroom for hours (days, weeks… depending on who you are) longer than they’d all like. With no end still in sight, most staffers haven’t seen their beds since the third or fourth day of the bleak and increasingly-ridiculous spectacle, camping out in various nooks and crannies of the ACN building, waiting for news to break.

Will and Mac included.

Or rather, Will and Mac, _who snuck off on Monday during their lunch hour to get married_ , included.

Everyone knew that the two were supposed to have Monday and Tuesday off, that had been on the calendar since the Dantana trial was dismissed a little less than a month ago, but everyone had assumed that they were just going away for a long weekend, not _eloping_.

(Sloan in particular had been offended. Everyone else kind of shrugged and understood that the two of them were so sick of the media attention—which had skyrocketed due to Dantana’s inclusion of Brian Brenner as a character witness, and Mac’s subsequent martyrization upon the revelation of a 911 call for a domestic disturbance the night she ended things once and for all with Brian that put him in a rather shady light—that they could vomit.

And so at last unshackled by the ever-present threat that any mid-trial nuptials would devolve into accusations of ‘it’s only for spousal privilege!’ the two had decided to manage that particular affair quietly and at City Hall on Friday by a judge friend of Will’s, and then go off for a weekend in the Hamptons.)

But once again, the Tea Party had to go and ruin things.

The October 10th broadcast ends to applause from the bullpen, sleep-deprived and slightly ragged staffers happy that they’re _finally_ getting traction, using the American Taliban broadcast as a talking point and garnering attention for calling this one well over a year ago… and getting Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and John Boehner all on air in one night to answer to it.

...and Will and Mac nailing them to the floorboards.

Live interviews are always interesting.

Especially when you’re dealing with equally sleep-deprived congressmen, who may say things like “I don’t care what what the cost is, we’ll keep the government shut down for however long it takes to win the game” and sprout incorrect statistics about said cost on live television.

It had quickly turned into another “throw out the rundown” kind of night.

In the middle of the A-block.

With Mac yelling at people to start booking someone from the CDC to talk about the salmonella and flu outbreaks that can't be investigated, an economist to talk about the 800,000 furloughed employees who might never get repaid for, as Cruz had put it, “work they didn’t do,” thanks to the shutdown he caused, and someone from the NIH on how they’ve had to start turning away hundreds of patients for their cancer treatments.

And then Mac coaching Will through dozens of statistics and through questioning some poor employee from Foster Farms who was about to lose their job for talking to them in regards to the seven strains of salmonella that the CDC and FDA didn’t have the resources to track, before finally seguing into a breakdown they had worked on earlier in the day as to how exactly the Tea Party shut down the government and how much money and how many lives and livelihoods were now at stake because of the gridlock.

Okay, so the October 10th broadcast ends to some pretty loud applause from the bullpen.

The staff has been using Will and Mac’s wedding largely as an excuse to boost morale through cake and somewhat drunken late-night antics, and when the two exit the studio the cheering crowd eventually demands (not for not the first time since Maggie noticed the ring on Will’s finger when they reappeared from their break on Monday) that they kiss.

It’s a bit like a very-extended wedding reception, in the sense that no one can go home and the newly-married couple just wants to get away from everyone else so they can have sex.

Will rolls his eyes before leaning down as Mac leans up onto her tiptoes to press her mouth to his briefly before turning to the assembled staff.

“Alright, you all know the deal. Congress isn’t in session, you don’t have to be here,” she instructs their captive staff, before sliding the cuff of her sleeve up over her watch. “Curfew is 2 AM or if something breaks before that. So… go eat, drink, be merry, or crawl into whatever hole you’ve been sleeping in since last Thursday. Go!”

Shuffling through the notes in her folio, she doesn’t quite notice the rapidity with which Will is towing her across the bullpen towards his office as staff begins to filter out for their brief reprieve, instead rambling on about how they’re going to have to pivot on their approach for tomorrow’s broadcast.

“I’ll have Jim call the White House for comment in the morning, see if they want to put someone on the air to respond to Cruz. And then see if the Republicans want to comment.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Will mutters in reply, pushing open the door to his office and dragging her through it before shutting it again.  

“And I think if this drags out for much longer without anyone putting a deal on the table we might want to start replaying clips from the American Taliban broadcast for vamping. Revisit who are the Republicans in name only,” Mac continues, reading off a list of scratched-out notes, missing Will contemplating the air mattress they’ve been crashing on the past few nights before loosening his tie and reaching for her again.

Mac looks up, confused, when he takes her things out of her hands and places them haphazardly on top of the table in his office.

“Honey?”

They’ve been fairly circumspect all week. Getting married at 12:20 on a Monday had been a compromise born out of necessity and a stubborn refusal to shift back their plans any further than they already had, albeit that it was a compromise that had a few drawbacks.

Like the fact that he hasn’t been able to wear his wedding band on the air, lest (and they both know they will) one of the gossip columnists who have been doggedly following them notices and blows it up, and frankly they don’t have the _time_ for that this week… and the fact that Will has, at this point, been restraining himself from pushing his new wife up against any surface, vertical or horizontal, for three now.

(Not that Mac hasn’t been tempted either, during the few hours the newsroom lulls into almost-stillness and the two of them are half-asleep together somewhere. But by then they’re both usually exhausted.)

But the staff will be out of the building for a few hours and _damn_ if it hasn’t been a night.

Her eyes widen when his hands cinch at her waist and he walks her back into his bathroom, kicks the door closed behind him, and backs her up against the far wall.

“Will—?”

He cuts her off with a kiss, bending slightly at the knees to press his hips into hers when she moans in surprise. It’s soft, at first, until her hands slide into his hair, fingers clenching and tugging. He bites her lip in retaliation, and then soothes it with his tongue, moving his hands to cup her hips, her ass, grinding her pelvis against his as fists the wool of her pencil skirt in his hands, tugging up the hem until it’s halfway up her thighs.

Eventually he pulls his mouth from hers to tongue the line of her jaw to her ear, nipping at her earlobe, laughing when he feels her knees give out before locking up again. “You were amazing tonight.”

His left hand comes up to flick open the buttons of her blouse, and Mac realizes how far he’s willing to take this inside his bathroom. And well, okay, it’s not like they’ve never done it inside the AWM building before, it’s just that they’ve generally done it well after hours. And forty-eight hours ago he was promising her candles and a suite at the Plaza when the shutdown is over, so Mac giggles and wonders what’s got him to this level of desperation.

“Billy,” she laughs, stroking her hands up and down his back before shoving his jacket off his shoulders. “You don’t have to feel bad about our first time as a married couple being a quickie in the bathroom.”

He pouts (she doesn’t even after to see it, she just knows) splaying his fingers over the newly-exposed skin of her chest and abdomen. “Who said anything about quick? We have five hours.”

“Well, unless your knees have suddenly—”

He sighs, slowly dragging up her skirt so it’s bunched around her waist. “Mac?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up,” he answers, kissing her again, hard and quick and entirely thorough, sliding his tongue along hers while hooking his fingers into the waistband of her black lace panties.

(God bless La Perla.

It’s weird and possessive, but he likes that most of Mac’s lingerie has been paid for by his credit card. Then again, Mac dresses him most mornings, buttoning up his shirts and fussing over how things lay and then usually does his tie before broadcasts, so they both have their own things.)  

He pulls away when she whimpers, kneeling and taking her underwear down with him, letting her step out of it and kick it away before taking one of her legs and sliding it over his shoulder. Turning his head, he mouths wet, open kisses along her inner thigh, letting his hands roam up and down her legs before pressing his thumbs into the line of her her hips meet her thighs.

“I said,” he says again, voice dropping in pitch when he helps her out of her shoes as a precaution, looking up the plane of her body. “You were amazing tonight.”

They’ve always been able to read each other exceptionally well, and he knows that it’s always been why they’ve always made a good team, but after cutting the emotional bullshit almost a year ago they work together even better. And fuck, if he didn’t first fall in love with Mac’s voice and brains, when Charlie called her in to sub for _News Night_ at the last minute. Before he saw her in person. Before she even told him her name.

Maybe that’s what’s always made them the best.

(Well, now at least the best in cable news, according the rankings.)

Maybe all anchors should fall in love with their EPs.

“You weren’t half bad yourself,” she answers breathlessly, reaching next to her to brace a hand on the lip of the sink.

He anchors her hips to the tiled wall using the arm on the side where he’s slid her leg over his shoulder, and lifts his other hand to come to the thatch of trim curls at the apex of her thighs to rub slow circles over her clit with his thumb.

“You’re magnificent,” he murmurs, lifting himself higher on his knees to trace the lines marking the butterfly of her pelvis with his mouth, letting his tongue slide along the soft skin slower and longer as he gets closer to her folds, repeating the motion when her hips jerk against him.

The hand which she isn’t using the sink to steady herself trails back into his hair as he works her over slowly, mouth hitting erogenous zones they rarely have the time or energy to pay, well, lip-service to, all the while his thumb keeps circling the bundle of nerves between her thighs with a near-painful kind of patience.

When he stops to just press the pad of the finger into her clit, Mac gasps. “ _Ohhh_ … and you’re a tease.”

Will snorts, repeating the motion. “I’m taking my time.”

“Are you saying,” she begins, swatting at him when he forces her to interrupt her question with a silent moan when he trails two fingers to her entrance, first working one to the knuckle, testing her, before slowing sliding in the other, “that I brought this on myself?”

He pumps his fingers in and out slowly, curving them down along the front of her channel, seeking out the rough patch of skin he knows is there, and then knows he’s found it when Mac hisses through her teeth, head falling back against the bathroom wall.

“Yeah, kind of,” he replies, laughing lowly, keeping his fingers curved into the spot, letting off a bit when he feels her knees threatening to give out, and thinks, well, it’s a bit too early for that.

Locking up her knee again, she’s rather thankful he let her at least get her four-inch heels off.

(Though that might have been a little self-serving too, Mac thinks, since he’ll have less to worry about in terms of keeping her upright. And the bigger height differential at this position is probably easier for his knees on the bathroom floor.)

“Fair enough,” she concedes, a bit breathlessly.

He waits until she looks down at him again to lean in and trail his tongue up her slit, using his thumb to pull her folds tight.

“Oh, fuck me,” Mac groans, crying out louder when he flattens his tongue over her clit before mouthing soft, deep kisses into her, pressing his fingers deep inside her again. “ _Fuck_.”

He sucks her clit into his mouth before letting up, laughing. “Be quiet or I’ll stop. The walls are—”

“Paper fucking thin, I know.” She looks down at him again, aggrieved. “Get on with it.” He bites her thigh in response, worrying the delicate skin between his teeth until she whines softly. “Please?”

“Better.”

He doesn’t fuck around this time, opening his mouth to her entirely, sliding the hand locked over her hips up to her breasts, tugging her bra down to roll a nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

Arousal pools between her thighs, and Mac lifts her hand the sink to push her bangs out of her eyes before directing his hand to her other breast, feeling her legs slowly lose motor control and trusting that Will will hold her up if they begin to give out from under her.

And okay, she had been looking forward to making their first time after their wedding special, but she thinks this is a rather agreeable compromise. (And one definitely playing to what she likes, since she knows Will knows that she likes to watch him eat her out.) If only the fucking Democrats and Republicans could find one of their own (although _probably_ not like this) so that she and Will could fuck as husband and wife in an actual bed.

(The Plaza is so happening, though. He’s not getting out of _that_ promise. Although at this point, Mac thinks, anyplace that isn’t the newsroom and the various locales within a block of the AWM building is looking really good to her. That, and a weekend with their cell phones turned off and absolutely no clothes.)

Will does something entirely too clever with his mouth and she has to bite down on her pointer finger to keep from moaning in appreciation, but she can tell by the way that his lips still for a moment before closing in over her clit and sucking, again, that he’s noticed the way her stomach and thigh muscles tightened up in response.

Slowing the movements of his fingers inside of her, he curls them one last time, making her breathe raggedly through the surge of delicious pressure between her thighs before slowly dragging them out of her and cupping her ass and pushing her harder against his mouth.

It takes approximately another minute for her legs to give out.

He is the one who moans at that, and the vibrations that reverberate through her only make her whine as contained as possible at this point of arousal, scrambling for any sort of support or balance. Pausing only palm his stiffening erection (because _fuck_ if her getting off on him doesn’t do it for him) down into a less painful position in his pants, Will wraps both of his arms under her thighs, taking all of her weight onto his shoulders, tightening his fingers into her ass when he hears her palm slap down onto the sink.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Mac just tries to focus on keeping herself quiet.

Which proves largely impossible with Will between her thighs and his tongue very skillfully strumming her clit, so she bites down on her lip and hopes for the best. Bracing her hands on the sink and the wall (she thinks he must have chosen this part of the bathroom strategically, between his sink and the corner) she looks down again, feeling a soft cry vibrate up her throat when he lowers himself down again to be able to meet her eyes.

Hair fucked all to hell (she’s going to have to fix that), jacket off, tie partly undone, blue eyes darkened with lust… just, _fuck_. For all that Will is good at slow and tender, he’s definitely has a talent for quick and dirty that asserts itself at the right times.

( _Not quick_ , she corrects herself. He’s definitely not interested in _quick_ at the moment, drawing out his deliberate movements and motions until she shakes and trembles, bears down against him. She wonders how wet she must be right now, because it’s definitely getting all over his face.)

Eventually, he hums something low and tuneless, drawing her clit between his lips and not letting up until she swallows a scream, letting up for a minute only to drive her there again, and again, until tears prick at the corners of her eyes, before finally letting her come.

He feels her climax, her thighs and hips and inner muscles tightening and releasing against him. Bringing her down from the high, Will strokes her back until her muscles loosen, straying away from her clit to rim her entrance with his tongue, coaxing her through her aftershocks, feeling her thighs twitch on his shoulders with each and every one.

He waits until she trusts herself enough to make noise, letting out a quiet moan and combing the fingers of one hand through his hair, and then pulls back and eases her legs off his shoulders, catching her as she slides to the floor.

They collapse rather unceremoniously into a heap of limbs, Mac winding her arms around his neck while she catches her breath with her forehead resting against his shoulder.

At some point, Mac looks up at him, and laughs. “Oh my God, you’re a mess.”

She fumbles behind her for the toilet paper roll, rips off a couple of sheets, and starts cleaning off his face, giggling breathlessly when he leans in to steal kisses while she does so.

Ever so graciously he tugs her shirt out from her skirt, sliding it off her shoulders and letting it drop to the floor next to her shoes and panties. Always a proponent of parity, Mac further loosens the knot of his tie and sets to getting it off of him (or at least undone) while he slides his hands around to her back to open the clasp of her bra, letting the straps fall down her shoulders.

(They both realize that they’re sitting on a bathroom floor of all places, but its late and they haven’t been home for any sort of meaningful amount of time in almost four days, and dammit, they’re going to steal this moment from chaos for as long as they can and they’re going to enjoy it.

...They just both really hope that no one comes looking for them for a while yet.)

Shrugging her bra off of her arms, Mac sighs, more than a little amused, when Will fills his hands with her breasts, rounding her nipples with his thumbs while she undoes the top few buttons of his shirt before reaching for his belt.

He manages to occupy himself for a few moments with her flushed, rosy-tipped breasts until she bypasses his belt to stroke his erection, squeezing it through his trousers until he groans, his head falling into her neck.

“MacKenzie,” he protests, palming the sides of her breasts, trying to keep himself from digging his fingers into them. “I need to be able to send my pants back to wardrobe.”

Snorting, she stands, pulling him up with her, grinning at his semi-desperate expression. Hands coming to his middle, she roughly undoes the buckle on his belt, nimbly undoing his button and zipper before slowly drawing the trousers down to his knees, effectively hobbling him. Carefully, she pulls out the waistband of his boxers and pulls them down past his erection, before pinning it to his belly, rubbing the throbbing the vein on the underside with her thumb.

He groans out her name again, trying to regain enough of his mental faculties to gracefully get his shoes off.

(He doesn’t.)

“Mac—ah, you don’t have to—Mac, I just—please, just,” he stutters, burying his face in her hair, tugging it out of her ponytail so he can sink his hands into it, all the while she begins to slowly jerk him off. He knows she’s just come pretty hard, and usually after that she needs to wait a bit, so— “Unless you don’t wanna—”

 _Fuck_ , he’s close, chasing her movements with his hips.

“Oh, I want to,” she whispers devilishly, before pushing him down onto the toilet lid, hiking her skirt up further (there’s really no point in keeping it on at this point, but some small part of her is indignant about the clothing deficit between the two of them) and straddling him. Biting her lip, she reaches down, maintaining eye contact while she aligns them and then slowly sinks into his lap.

This is why she (and well, him too, she thinks, since Will is neurotic about her most days in regards to smaller things than this) likes climaxing at least once before taking him inside her, so she can take all of him without either of them worrying about depth or causing her any pain. She moans lightly at the sensation of being full, and stretched, the wiry curls at the base of his cock brushing against her clit and she cants her hips forward just enough that it feels good without it being over-stimulating.

Will buries his face in her breasts and moans, louder, letting her skin muffle him. Mac strokes her fingers through his hair, laughing at his obvious relief before starting to rock her hips against his.

MacKenzie thinks she isn’t going to get out of this without at least a few interesting marks, and mentally starts to go over the clothes she packed when it became apparent that the shutdown wasn’t ending anytime. She hopes she thought to bring at least one high-necked shirt…

Slowly, she begins to lift her hips away from him, bracing her forearms on his shoulders so that she can ride him the way that he likes.

“MacKenzie,” he groans, stretching out the vowels in her name, hands coming to her hips, pulling her down harder onto him.

It takes him a moment to realizing she’s starting to cry out again, the low, quiet whimpers that signify the beginning of arousal for her.

“Fuck, can you come again?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” she answers, panting, circling her hips over him until he squeezes his eyes shut and digs his fingers into her skin.

“No, ah, fuck—can you?”

“Will—”

Unable to wait for an answer (mostly because he’s so close to coming himself and it’s been a pitifully short amount of time) one of his lands leaves her hips, working between them to gently rub her clit.

“Yeah,” she breathes, throwing her head back. “Okay.”

He slows her down, until she’s rocking into him again, thighs loose against his own, encouraging with a hand on her hip to move how she wants and then chasing her movements the best that he can, until he feels her muscles clenching around him faster, and then faster, until she starts riding him again, chasing her own orgasm.

She catches his mouth against hers arching her back to make the angle work, sliding her tongue against his, whimpering his name when he pulls her towards him for a closer fit and ducks his head to track the curve of a breast with his lips.

Distantly, they realize that they’re getting louder than is probably wise in Will’s tiny bathroom, and Mac prays that the staff is out drinking because their moans are starting to echo off the tile.

Will goes back to burying his face in her chest, stroking his hands up and down her back when she starts moving her hips in a terminal rhythm, offering up his hand to bite on when he feels a scream building under her ribcage.

He comes seconds after her teeth bite into his index and middle fingers, hips jerking up what little they can into hers, his mind going blank completely when she clamps down on him moments later, hips rocking forward frantically to get the pressure against her clit that she needs to topple herself over the edge.

For the next few minutes, the bathroom is filled with the sound of their haggard breathing.

“So…” she eventually asks, sitting up, legs slackened. Pausing to kiss his cheek, she laughs at how hard she’s still breathing. “Was that in response to throwing out the rundown, or in response to the fact that we got married 72 hours ago but haven’t been alone in the same room since?”

“Why can’t it be both?” Will answers, helping her stand and dragging the zipper on her skirt down so she can send it to the floor and step out of it, before reaching for toilet paper to clean herself with. “Compromise?”

“Compromise,” Mac agrees, kissing him again, softly, before pulling back looking up at him with widened eyes, smiling impishly. “Now… can you go get me a change of clothes?”

“Can’t I just keep you like this for a little bit longer?” he sighs, pulling her against him. “We told the staff 2 AM.”

“Will…”

He steps away, unlocking the door, stopping only to fix his pants and tuck his shirt back in. “Yeah, yeah, compromise…”  

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
